If you’re like me, you like to be able to have access to some of your files wherever you might be. MobileMe has a great online storage option with their iDisk, but you want cheaper? How about free? Then Dropbox might be the service you are looking for!

Dropbox is an online storage/folder sync service that ranges in price from Free for 2GB of online storage up to $19.99 per month for 100GB. So, what does Dropbox offer you? How does simple storage sound? After signing up for the Dropbox service and downloading the installer program for your computer, you get a Dropbox folder installed on your Computer. This folder is then synced to their servers. You can access this folder via their website or you can run the installer on another computer you own and then Dropbox will copy the contents of the synced folder onto that computer as well. Anytime you add a file or delete a file from your Dropbox folder, that change will then be synchronized to all copies of that folder on all your computers. Not too bad for free.

Have an iPhone or iPod Touch? Well, there’s an app for that! You can download the Dropbox application from the iTunes App Store and with that, you can browse the synced folder that is on the Dropbox server and even open files, such as PDF’s word docs, images… all from your pocket device!

What’s that you say? You want more features? Okay then, how about shared folders? That’s right, you can even share folders with your friends, so they can upload files and retrieve files from your Dropbox. More? Okay, you can right click on a file in your public folder located in the Dropbox, select “Copy URL” and then email that link to someone to download that file from the Dropbox. Need more free storage? Well, you can send referral emails from Dropbox and when your friends sign up, you will get another 250MB per person, up to a maximum of 3GB total.

I know that 2 to 3GB of online storage can’t compare to the 20GB that you get with a paid MobileMe account, but hey, we are looking for free here. Another service, SugarSync, also promotes free storage and an iPhone app as well. If you have another suggestion for free storage, let us know!

Save Circle by Candyware is a small application that you can use to set up autosaves… not just in Photoshop either. It can be configured to do saves in any application that is the frontmost app on your Mac. You can even configure how often you want it to save as well. Another big bonus… it’s free. I suggest you jump on over to Candyware today and download this program. It just might save your bacon!

Ever used MobileMe? If you have, then you might agree with me in the opinion that Apple really has created a nice suite of services. Originally called iTools, they have morphed into an online hub for all your personal data. You can create a website, share photos, access your calendar and contacts list and check your email. They’ve even given you 20GB of storage space that you can split up between all these services. Let’s also not forget Back to My Mac and find my iPhone. Wrap all these together and you get a total online presence from Apple. What’s this cost you? About $99 per year (you can sometimes get a discount by purchasing a kit through Amazon.com). But let’s say you’re a bit frugal and don’t want to pay for these services. Is there anything out there you can use to mimic all these services for free or really cheap?

The short of it yes… mostly. While there are freebees for all these, there is one service that does not have a match and that’s Apple’s find my iPhone. If you can live without that one, then I can show you a list of alternatives, and then in upcoming articles, I’ll show you how you set all these up on your Mac and your iPhone. So let’s get started.

Email: This is a simple one. Google’s free Gmail service is one of the most widely used, free email addresses on the internet. With Gmail, you get 7GB of space included for free. You can use Apple’s mail application with gmail if you don’t want to use the webmail interface. Gmail can even check other email accounts you have with other services. Gmail is fast and effective.

Address Book: Here’s another easy one. Gmail from Google has a great contacts feature that is incredibly easy to synchronize with your Mac’s address book. It’s a simple option to turn on in your address book’s preference pane and you are all set. You can even synchronize your contacts with your iPhone or iPod Touch via Google Sync.

Calendar: Looks like I’m taking another dive into the Google well one more time. Google’s calendar service allows you to connect via your iCal and synchronize your calendars so you can sync them over different computers and view them over the web as well. You can also set this up on your iPhone and iPod Touch via Google Sync too.

Dropbox is a great iDisk alternative

iDisk: iDisk gives you 10GB of online storage by default, so our free alternative to iDisk doesn’t quite give you the same storage space, but it is free and easy to use. Dropbox comes with 2GB for free standard. You can purchase more storage space if you find yourself using all of it and need more room (50GB will set you back $99 per year… right back to the cost of MobileMe). You can get additional storage, up to 3GB, for free by inviting your friends to join. Dropbox will sync a folder on multiple computers which you can also access over the web from the Dropbox website and then even offer an iPhone app for you to view files you have stored on Dropbox.

Website: You can still get a free website these days through a service like either Blogger or Tumblr. Both of these create blogs that you can edit yourself, upload photos and share your thoughts on anything. Free is good!

Photo Sharing: Flickr is far and away the most popular of the photo sharing sites out on the internet today. A free account is quick and easy to get at Flickr.com. There is also easy integration between Flickr and iPhoto as well. You can easily export to Flickr using the Flickr button in iPhoto.

Back to My Mac: A new service that is now available for the Mac is LogMeIn Free. As I have yet to try it out, I cannot speak to it’s ease and reliability, but I will have a full report for you in this series. If you are willing to jump through some hoops, you can setup a free domain that will point back to your home computer and you can access it through a free program like Chicken Of the VNC. This is a bit more complex to setup, but once it’s done, it works very well.

I hope that this list has helped to show you that there are some pretty good free alternatives to MobileMe out there. This is by no means a full list of all the freebees out there, but you could say this is a good starting point. In the next part in this series, I will show you how to setup a Gmail account and setup your Mac and iPhone to access it and keep your mail in sync between the two.

First, open up your System Preferences and select Print & Fax under Hardware:

Select the printer on the left that is causing you the issues

Then hit the ‘-’ key and delete that printer from your list

Next, hit the ‘+’ key to re-add that printer

After that, you should be okay to print! If that did not work, I would suggest resetting the printing system on your Mac. You can do this by right-clicking (or control-click) in a blank area in the printer list. It will bring up a pop-up menu where you can select to reset the printing system. Hope this helps you out!

A free application available at the iTunes application store, the Blizzard Authenticator adds another layer of authentication to your World of Warcraft account. It works this way: You log into your World of Warcraft game as you normally would with your username and password. After that, another entry box will pop up asking you to enter the number that is being shown on authenticator’s screen. Once you’ve done that, you are free to play your game. The number is changing all the time, some it become virtually impossible that someone else can hack your account and use it to spam others in the game.

You will have to setup your Blizzard Battle.net account to work with an authenticator (steps for that can be found at: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=24987). Once you’ve done that, you can rest assured that your account will then be safe. (Note: whatever you do, don’t lose the authenticator! If that happens, you will be on the phone with Blizzard trying to reset your account!)

Open up the Terminal application (Mac HD>Applications>Utilities>Terminal).

Enter the following command: defaults read com.wakoopa.wakoopatracker

It will give you some information on Wakoopa tracker. The most important line is:

paused = YES;

If you see this, go to the Wakoopa tracker app in your menubar and pause it, then unpause it. It should restart tracking your app usage. Run the terminal command again and see if paused now equals NO. If it doesn’t, try pausing and unpausing again. This should do the trick!

• Hold down the home button and then press the sleep button on top of the iPod/iPhone. The flashing screen will let you know that the shot has been taken.

That’s it! When you connect your iPod/iPhone to your Mac, just launch iPhoto and then you can transfer the shot to your image library on your computer!

Screenshot from my iPod Touch

1. First, launch your address book application.

2. Then go into your address book preferences.

3. After your preferences are open, click on Synchronize with Google. It will ask you to enter your gmail account information.

4. When you’ve finished, you can launch your web browser, visit your gmail account and your contacts should now be visible in your Gmail Contacts list!

This tip only works in the latest version of MacOS X 10.5 Leopard. Give it a try today!

Of course, the logic board on my old girl decided to die about 3 months after the program ended. What to do now? Being a thrifty guy, I really didn’t feel like plunking down another $275 and not have the problem permenantly fixed. Someone actually told me a workaround where you could stick business cards inside the case (no lie) and it would cause the video chip to make contact with the logic board and it would work. I actually tried this for about 2 months. It worked occasionally, but it was not a long term fix. Well, enter First Phase Technologies, a company in Arizona that provides a service where they will take your logic board that you have removed from your iBook, reflow the solder on the chip and send it back to you. They even sent before and after x-rays of the solders which show you the faulty solders that were on the original logic board. You do have to completely take the iBook apart to remove the logic board to send them. I was at the point where if it didn’t get fixed, it would be worthless eventually anyways.

After 4 months, the iBook is still working great, other than some scuffs on the finish. I can recommend, without reservation, their service as it really does seem to do the trick. To find out more about First Phase Technologies iBook repair, go to http://www.firstphasetech.com/ibook-repair-g3-g4.html.